Yes, those Netanyahus. The narrator of this book is a kind of version of Harold Bloom, even though we’re told not to think that, but I do anyway. Professor Blum is an Americanist history professor in a western New York college. He’s approached by department chair asking him to be on a hiring committee for a new position for a medievalist. He gets the (accurate) impression that he’s only being asked because the clearly preferred candidate is a highly-recommended Medieval Judaism scholar named Benzion Netanyahu who will be coming for a hiring visit in the coming weeks. This visit will involve a number of informal events as well as a formal interview session with other members of the committee and a delivered lecture. This is the basic plot of the novel, but our narration involves Blum telling us about meeting his wife and marrying, his relationship with his teenage daughter who is on the cusp of applying for colleges, his relationship with his parents (Jewish immigrants of modest means) and his in-laws (upper-middle class Jews of immodest means). This tension we see in his parents versus in-laws will of course come to a specific head with the arrival of the Netayahus, Jews who moved to Israel and started a family, three boys who were born and raised there as well.
After one chapter break, we read a letter from Benzion Netayahu’s previous department chair and dissertation chair who glowingly recommends his employment and even laments that they cannot hire him. After another chapter break we get a much more ambivalent letter from a former colleague who seems to be warning Blum that Netayahu’s scholarship often falls into barely-veiled religious and, with the founding Israel, political dogma. The basic argument behind Netanyahu’s scholarship is that during the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were targeted not because they refused to convert, citing that many many Jews voluntarily converted before, during and after the Inquisition, but for the need of a constant “other” to visit suppression as a cantilever for Christian. In addition, we come to find out because of the influence of Jews in Spanish finances in order to control the flow of money. Blum finds the argument, and more so, the evidence ultimately lacking. He also feels a tension for being an American Jew who never faced any kind of pogrom or annihilation and certainly was not part of any Zionist movement.
The novel continues here with the visit. Expecting only the scholar, Blum is shocked to find the entire Netanyahu family. The wife is also an emigre to Israel and three boys are presented as near-savage hooligans, a characterization of which leads to a hilariously chaotic climax.
The novel is often very funny, a savage satire of both college life and mid-century America, and of course an exploration of multiple forms of Judaism in the 20th century, at least bringing into question the concept of anti-historical existence.
